• Columnists

Donna Fisher, author, "Professional Networking for Dummies"

COLUMN = NETWORKING

Donna Fisher is an entrepreneur at heart. She loves creating and growing fun and profitable businesses. For 20 years, she has had her own business as a speaker/trainer for corporate meetings, conferences and conventions. She earned her Certified Speaking Professional designation CSP in 1998 and has continued to present programs on “People, Power and Possibilities.”

Along with her speaking business, she is the co-owner and President of HiHat, Inc., a manufacturing and retail business for drums and percussion instruments. http://www.percussiononline.com

In 2009, the Percussion Center was ranked as one of the “Top 50 Fastest Growing Woman-Owned Businesses in Houston” based on a growth of 156% from 2002 to 2009 and 20.8% from 2007 to 2008. This led to the creation of her training program, “Drumming Up Business.”

In 2004, she rediscovered her creative side and her love of crocheting while visiting her Mother in North Carolina. The creative juices led to the development of three products, the camishawl, the Sharap and Chakra Shawls. Her product line is Soft & Luxurious custom designed and hand created wearable textiles. http://www.softandluxurious.com

Her five books, “Power Networking,” “People Power,” “Power NetWeaving,” “Switched-On Networking,” and “Professional Networking for Dummies” have been translated into four languages, recommended by Time magazine, and used as reference books in corporations and universities.

Donna’s mission is to be a catalyst for people to communicate and relate with respect and dignity and connect with people to make a difference. She helps people get set up to use Send Out Cards to stay connected with clients, prospects, family and friends.

For more information, visit www.donnafisher.com.

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.”

– Anthony Trollope

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

– Albert Schweitzer

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.”

– Voltaire

I don’t do very well without fear. There needs to be a part of me saying, ‘That’s going to fail,’ so I can prove myself wrong.”

– Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe

Success is about finding a livelihood that brings joy, self-sufficiency, and a sense of contributing.”

– Anita Roddick

It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.”

– Aristotle

A lot of people have ideas, but few decide to do something about them now. Not next week. But today.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

– Eckhart Tolle

No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth.”

– Martha Beck, from "Leaving the Saints"

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
 If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”

– Oprah Winfrey

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

– Joseph Campbell

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

– Steve Jobs

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”

– Steve Jobs

If you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”

– Oprah Winfrey

A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

– Chinese Proverb

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

– Mark Twain

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

– Audre Lorde

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

The goal of Life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.”

– Joseph Cambell

With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.”

– Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas Edison

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

‎No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

Treat the attainment of happiness in the same way an entrepreneur would approach building a business — with a vision, plan, goals, and a systematic approach.”

– Ted Leonsis

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott

Don’t follow your dreams. Chase them.”

– Richard Dumb

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Don’t wait for someone else to lead you to your right life; that privilege—and responsibility—is yours alone.”

– Martha Beck

I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

– Christopher Robin to Pooh